Call me "Tink": The new adventures of old Tinker Bell

First things first: it's Tinker Bell, two words, not Tinkerbell. Has any major star of stage and screen been more consistently misspelled? Perhaps that's a sidways tribute to the naming prowess of playwright and author J.M. Barrie. The name flows so naturally, you can scarcely hear the words.

In fact, Barrie introduced a full lineup of iconic character names in his play and stories about Peter Pan. Captain Hook boiled down pirate tales to their villainous essence. Wendy, a little known nickname, became a girlish standard. And Peter Pan, when you stop to think of it, is just a straightforward linking of everyday boy and untamed, pipe-playing nature spirit...but you don't stop to think of it, because it sounds so natural. Even the Darling family has the timeless feel of fairy tales. Think of Prince Charming before them, and the Dearly family of Dodie Smith's The 101 Dalmations or "Jim Dear and Darling" of Disney's Lady and the Tramp later on.

But it's Tinker Bell who's taking center stage right now. Reader zoerhenne sent me a link about the fairy's upcoming star turn in a new Disney DVD release, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure.

When you think of Disney's Tinker Bell, you probably think of her like this, from the original hand-animated film of Peter Pan:

Disney

She's a dainty little pixie, giving off the all-important pixie dust that lets trusting children fly. Tinker Bell was Barrie's 20th-century invention, yet in name and concept she slips seamlessly into the immortal realm of childhood magic. Her name follows the convention of heroines like Thumbelina and Cinderella, evocative nouns stretched out into feminine name form.

In the case of Tinker Bell, the evocation of tinkling bells is the perfect auditory counterpart to pixie dust. (The name shouldn't be taken too literally; a tinker was an itinerant tinsmith who mended pots and pans.) It's not just a name of magic, but of dreams of magic: spine-tingling and elusive. Even in our age where "bell" names like Annabelle and Isabella are the peak of style for girls, Tinkerbell remains an unlikely choice -- the most prominent namesake to date has been Paris Hilton's pet chihuahua. Such a pixieish name fairly demands a wand and gossamer wings.

But that pixie's been changing. As the centerpiece of the "Disney Fairies" franchise she's taken on more substance. The new movie appears to take it even further. Check out this screenshot from the trailer:

Disney

This time around, the intrepid Tinker Bell appears to be setting out on an Indiana Jones-style adventure, dressed a lot like...Peter Pan.

I'm all for strong heroines, but this is a pretty dramatic change for a fairy who used to be delicate enough to perish from a single child's disbelief. It's a big change for the name, too. The name Tinker Bell is all pixie, zero action hero. Is it any surprise that in this new incarnation, Tinker Bell goes more and more by the nickname Tink?

Comments

Thanks for the nod Laura! I love how in the original article they mention how she was so iconic as to be used in the opening sequence of Disney's Wide World of Disney show(which I remember and used to love as a child). I agree that it probably won't be the next breakout name. However, it is the perfect name for the pixie fairy. Tink has quite a bit of spunk. Her friends names in fairy land are:
Fawn – An Animal Fairy
Iridessa – A Light Fairy
Rosetta – A Garden Fairy
Silvermist – A Water Fairy
Clank & Bobble – Tinker Fairies
Terence – A Pixie Dust Fairy
Blaze – A Young Firefly
Fairy Gary – Head of the Pixie Distribution Center
Lyria – A Storytelling Fairy
Viola – A Summoning Fairy
Here's the link to that info:
http://www.disneysociety.com/2009/09/25/who-are-tinker-bells-fairy-friends/

Again, I think they are all named well. Their names match what they do similarly to how we have been talking about name meanings. I wonder if any of the other fairy names will rise at all. They seem much more in tune with today's sound trends. I bet Gary will take a bit of a hit though.

In the book Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg, by Gail Carson Levine (GREAT book!), which I believe spawned the Disney Fairies?? every fairy has a talent. Tinker Bell's is... mending pots and pans! How apropos.

When I was teaching elementary school, there was a family at our school with three little girls: Ariel, Belle, and Cinderella. When their mom announced that she was having a fourth daughter, I had my fingers crossed for Tinker Bell. Alas, they went with Aurora. It makes sense — you wouldn't want to have a Belle and a Tinker Bell.

i'm guessing you thought drucilla instead of drizella because...i'm not sure the latter is a real name.

cgdh,
the disney princess siblings are hilarious! i would never do that, but it's kind of fun, i suppose...i would have gone for jasmine or something else over cinderella though. cinderella is a bit TOO fairytale for me. the others are more flexible.

Ha! My DD (age 4) wants to name our new baby Princess Aurora if it's a girl. Naturally, if it's a boy, it will be Prince Phillip ;). DS (6yo) is voting for Gargamel.

I haven't seen the new Tinker Bell movie -- she's gotten a lot less mean, hasn't she? Maybe that will make her a more palatable namesake. In the category of "fictitious Bells", I'd still go with Bellatrix.

jillc,
the name bellatrix is fun, but the namesake is pretty negative!

i guess other disney "princesses" include pocahontas, mulan, and snow white. maybe alice from alice in wonderland or megara (meg) from hercules? if she has a son, i think she should name him aladdin or "the beast." :]

Just came across a sibset in the local (Newfoundland) birth announcements:

Jonas
Mathias
Lewis

I think I like the matchy-ness of the "s" endings, which is diluted a bit by the diffusion of national origins represented.

As for Disney princesses, another one to the list: Tiger Lily (Hutchence - fullname Heanenly Hirannii Tiger Lily but goes by T.L.). Not an easy one to pull off, but then again, her sisters are Pixie, Peaches, and Fifi Trixiebelle so it fits the theme at least.

The switch from Tinker Bell to Tink certainly matches the physical transformation from figure skater to double-d action hero, but I'm wondering if it also reflects a change in names-vs-nicknames traditions. If Cinderella and Snow White were to make a comeback, would they be Cindee and SnoWhi? I'm getting the feeling (here, there, everywhere..) that an increasing number of people seem to think you cannot possibly expect people to pronounce a three-syllable name on a regular basis. (Tin-ker-Bell). Everything must have a nickname; long names must have short nicknames, already short names must have an alternate version, preferably diminutive. Could this be part of the reason Tinker Bell was chopped down to Tink? Or is it just me seeing things that aren't really there?

Re Tinker Bell being Tink-I do also remember her affectionately being called Tink by Peter Pan in many of the previous movies. I agree with Anna that this may be a shift in the minds of the creators to update because of current naming trends. However, I think its in combination with the broader marketing scheme. They updated her look and her name to be more in line with the spunkiness of her now being more of a main character and not Peter Pan's "kept women" (for lack of a better term). Think of it as an updated women's movement that is happening right now. Little girls are supposed to play with dolls who can be anything and look like them and have names like they do. The female characters are not relegated to the background but now become the superheroes themselves. I've even seen that Rainbow Brite is getting a makover.
*Side note: I do agree that the images/dolls need to be a little less top-heavy and a put on a bit more weight :)*

I just want to remind everyone that the original Tinker Bell was simply a spotlight in the Barrie play, which came before the book I believe. Again, Peter calls her Tink in the play as well.
The most sigificant change to the character is that she speaks instead of just tinkling. I completely agree with zoerhenne about the female empowerment aspect (as a part of marketing to a new audience). If she is dressed more like Peter, I think that is just the outcome of more practical adventure gear for a character originally designed by Disney as a coquettish sidekick for Peter.

@ CGDH: My dad grew up with a family who named all their kids after characters in Winnie the Pooh. There was a Roo, and we can only assume a Winnie and a Christopher (he was the lucky one imho) and I feel bad for Eeyore (if there was one)

@zoerhenne and Penny: "Fairy Gary" is actually "Fairy Mary". She's the head of the tinker fairies in Tinker Nook, part of Pixie Hollow.

I've seen the first movie approximately 7,000 times. Four year old daughter, you know.

Disney has created an entire "Fairies" world for young girls, with Tinker Bell at the front, targeted at probably the 5-8 set, though my daughter and a lot of other younger girls I know love it too - at least the movie and the "stuff", if not the online world. All the fairies have a "talent" which dictates their place in the fairy world. So yes, Tinker Bell is a tinker fairy. (Probably one of the least imaginative names.) Her friend Silvermist (nn Sil) is a water fairy. Fawn is an animal fairy. Iridessa (nn Dess) is a light fairy.

Wikipedia has a long listing of the fairy names including a bunch of fairies from the books with names that could be on any popular name list: Lily, Iris, Luna, Ginger, Violet, Scarlet.

As a mom of a young girl, while I certainly don't love the revealing fairy outfits and whatnot, I do like the presentation of Tink as a go-getter, not afraid to go for what she wants, takes responsibility, etc. - all those good things we try to teach our kids. Better than the Tink of old in the Peter Pan movie who is jealous of Wendy, tries to hurt her, and betrays Peter Pan (if unwittingly). I certainly prefer Tink to any insipid princess just waiting for her prince to make her happy.

Sorry - this is a name blog and I went off there - the princess thing just annoys me.

Interesting names on high school kids I keep forgetting to post:
Mabel
Leslie (male)
Angus (not, Scottish, which is why I find it interesting)
Millie
Stacy
Angelika (I've never seen the k spelling, but she's Polish, so it might be Polish)
Gary (I know 3)

@ mar: I understand how it annoys you, the princess thing that is, but I grew up watching Disney princess movies, loving them, playing with Barbies, dressing as Cinderella/Snow White/etc. for Halloween a lot and I've grown up all right if I do say so myself, as have all of my friends who also grew up with that stuff. I'm not saying this is true for all girls, but I don't know anyone who was particularly influenced the way people think they might be by these things. Not to say that your concern isn't legit, but I just don't think it makes that much difference.

So, hubby nixed the Matthew idea. :( I really liked Mateo for a nn. He said it was too Christian for our 100% Jewish family. (the apostle, book of Matthew, etc). Oh well.

On the same note, my SIL (offspring set Jacob, Paige, Benjamin) offered her top 10 girls names starting with an "M":
Mia
Mya
Madison
Mackenzie
Mallory
Madeline
and about 4 other very trendy names.
;)

She doesn't like my Miriam idea, but did like Marin and added that to her top 10. BTW, these top 10 are for our baby, not hers. She's done.
LOL. I can see she and I are different naming paths, so I'll just keep my ideas to myself for awhile. As for boys, she did like Matthew (RIP name) but not Marshall or Malcolm. She thinks my names are going to get the kid beaten up for being a geek. Hubby's a geek and wants one of his own! SIL did kindly give me the use of a family "E" back, even though she had used it for her son's middle name. I thought that was nice of her (tongue firmly in cheek).

Would Malcolm or Marshall get a kid teased in the world of Henry and Jack?

Mar-My dd is not so much into the Tinker Bell fairy world. She much more enjoys the Little Pet Shop/Polly Pocket and other tiny creatures. I do get your point though.

Kim in Philly-I guess your dh has a point about Matthew but its such a "nice" name . Couldn't it transcend the Christian thing?? I don't think in this new world of names that a Marshall or Malcolm would get teased too much. He will be among so many others that we used to think were "geeky" and have now grown to be refreshing. Ask a 5yo if you can find one-they will always tell you whats what.

Kim in Philly-- Of course, kids can (and do!) tease about any name under the sun, but Malcolm is such a distinguished, venerable name with many historical associations, I wouldn't care. Can always be nicknamed down to "Mac" or "Colm", both of which are crisp, masculine and appealing.

However, if your hubby has sensitivities about names with Christian associations, would he be put off by the fact that it means "disciple or servant of (Saint) Columba"?

"Marshall", not sure. Possibly because of the "sh" sound, may be poised to go the the girls' side. One of the Bush sons, Marvin I think, named his daughter Marshall.

How are you with the somewhat similar name "Mitchell"? ("Mitch" is such a cute nickname.) Mitchell give you all the pluses of the classic Michael, without its current ubiquity (sp?).

Random namespotting: Banks and I have been reading a bedtime book about a spunky young girl at summer camp-- her formal name is the rather somber "Dolores", but she is known to everyone as "Dilly". Cute. Reminds me of the Welsh Dilys which I like so much...

i can't see marshall or malcolm getting teased at all...i've never thought of those names as geeky and i certainly don't now. i mean maybe if you were considering wilbur or elmer or floyd or something... but i definitely can't see a marshall or malcolm being teased.

and i'm kind of on the fence about the princess thing. i get mar's point, but as a. rose said, i grew up watching beauty and the beast and aladdin and the little mermaid, etc. i think i turned out okay, and honestly, they're not bad role models, for the most part, though obviously unrealistic body image might be an issue.

Maybe it's just me, but I don't find anything even remotely geeky about Malcolm or Marshall. I think Marshall sounds a bit more feminine (just a bit), just because of the SH sound in the middle (or maybe just because it sounds like Marcia), but, personally, I don't think a boy having a name that's not uber-masculine is a problem. It's still a traditional male name, and no one will mistake it for a female name. Malcolm, on the other hand, sounds very strong and masculine to me. I know a young Malcolm, brother to Oliver. I like Malcolm a lot. Also, for what it's worth, I don't think teasing is a big problem when it comes to "geeky" names. I think you need to watch out for names that have really bad associations or rhyme with an unfortunate word or something (Dorcas, for instance), and most likely a boy with a very girly name (like Annabel, not Leslie) will be teased, but for the most part, I think (sadly) that kids will get teased for who they are, not for what they're named. I know lots of kids who grew up with unusual names, and while some of them were teased, it was rarely about the names.

Oh, and I meant to add, for Kim in Philly, that I've known many, many Jewish Matthews, so it doesn't seem like a Christian name to me. They have brothers named David, Benjamin, Daniel, Noah, Joshua, etc, so it actually has always felt like a rather Jewish name to me.

For the record, though, I'm a Jew who would consider naming a child Augustine or Ambrose, so I guess it doesn't bother me to use a non-Jewish name (even a saint's name) on a Jewish child. There are lines I don't cross, however: Christopher, Christian, Christina, Nevaeh, etc, would never find their way to a child of mine.

I agree with Clementine. Sadly, I think the most harmful teasing does not start with a child's name. Interestingly (d/t Clementine's example), when I was in high school my school district consolidated with a neighboring district, and Dorcas was a student there (much younger, but her brother was in my class and I later knew the family through other circles). I was always surprised that she was never teased for her name--even harmless teasing (if there is such a thing concerning one's name). I do not find Malcolm or Marshall geeky either.

@ Kim in Philly: Me too, I've known tons of Jewish Matthews. Also, I can't see Marshall or Malcolm being teased. My only association with Marshall is the character on How I Met Your Mother, which isn't really a negative or positive association, just an association. The name is however totally male to me. As is Malcolm (my grandfather's name, so I'm totally in favor of this!) which I thought was a totally old-fashioned name (b/c of my grandpa) but I know someone my age named Malcolm, so I might have been wrong. He goes by Malcolm, whereas my grandpa goes by Mac (he and my grandma Dot--Aurora Dorothy, but always went by Dot(ty)--always used there nn's and some of the consonants in our ln on their license plates (think Crptr for Carpenter) which I always thought was cute... but, I digress.) I vote for Malcolm!

Wow, just looked Malcolm up on NameVoyager to see. Peaked in the '20s at 219 and was at a steady climb and then fall around that. Rose a bit from the '70s to the '80s and spiked up in the '90s (went from 400 to 298 and by 2003 was back down to 494 and has been in the mid 500s ever since. Does anyone know why it had that strange spike. Seeing as how I remember very little of the '90s I have no clue! Was there some celebrity Malcolm I know nothing about?

Mac for Malcolm!! I love that! I have no idea why I didn't think of it. I used to love Max but got over it, so I'm real keen on this. Very cool, will have to bring it up to hubby (though I promised him name talk only once a week and we just discussed Matthew last night- arrgh!)

RobynT- my naming saga is new, and I'm only 10 weeks along, so unfortunately for this community, you'll be hearing about it for awhole. Basically, here are the criteria I need to follow:
*Jewish naming tradition of first initial, in this case: m, e, t, d, a, s, h, r
*In the Top 1000, but not necessarily top 200 and above (if possible)
*must have a proper spelling and pronunciation and recognizable as a traditional sort of name (no Neveah)
*as per hubby, not solely as a New Testament name (no Jesus, Christopher, Kristin, Matthew, etc.)
* hubby likes geeky names, I like grandma/pa names but sometimes will like a name that is a bit different. I probably wouldn't be daring enough to use real crazy names.
* multisyllabic that has great nickname potential
*goes with sibset Isabel Skye (but her name was a family name, definitely not chosen for it's popularity)
*no name can end in an "s" (no James, Miles :(, Banks). My last name sounds like Byderman and therefore has the horrible potential to sound like Spiderman. It's bad enough as a teacher Mrs. Spiderman!

Wow, just looked Malcolm up on NameVoyager to see. Peaked in the '20s at 219 and was at a steady climb and then fall around that. Rose a bit from the '70s to the '80s and spiked up in the '90s (went from 400 to 298 and by 2003 was back down to 494 and has been in the mid 500s ever since. Does anyone know why it had that strange spike. Seeing as how I remember very little of the '90s I have no clue! Was there some celebrity Malcolm I know nothing about? Was it Malcolm (who was in the middle) who influenced the name?

I used to write copy for a toy company and we got a preview of the new Disney Fairy movies back when the first one came out. We also talked about the changes between Tink and the old Tinker Bell. We were saying that it's great that they want to present different types of girly characters, since obviously little girls are Disney's bread and butter right now, but why do they have to go back and mess with the old favorites? I'm sure there are plenty of great new ideas and new characters out there, but they want to keep reusing and reinventing characters they know will sell. So instead of creating a new character who's smart and spunky, they have to turn Tinker Bell into Tink. Your last sentence, Laura, was right on the money. That's EXACTLY why they're calling her Tink.

The Malcolm spike - I think it looks a little more drastic than it actually is because a) the overall numbers are small (the spike would barely register as a dent on the Jacob graph) and b) there's only one data point per decade before ca. 2004.

I wonder, how does the target audience view the names Terrence and Gary? I know some of us see those as middle-aged men, but I actually thought that Terrence was a pretty cool name when I was younger. I wonder if 8-year-old girls of the US hear Gary and think "cool!" too.

Sorry this isn't name-realated, but after seeing the trailer (thanks, Zoerhenne) I think Tinker Bell's costume change as being a story issue: that Terrence (who reminds me an awful lot of Peter Pan) will mistake her for a boy, and we'll have the entire "oh my heck you're a GIRL??? But girls can't do THAT because they're too DUMB!" scenario. Which annoys me, to be honest. (Warning: rant about to commence. Really, can't we have a girl-empowering movie that doesn't have to make the main boy an idiot, first? Can't we have a movie in which the boy is like, "hey, you're a girl! Cool! Don't hide who you are, all right?" or even goes "Ah, you're a girl," and moves on. To me, not only would those reactions teach young girls that it's perfectly normal to do anything a boy can do, but it would role-model for young boys what the best way to think and act is. Okay. Rant over.) Here's hoping that the movie doesn't follow that tired plot device.

Okay, back to names.

This past week, I ran into the mother of a Gwend0lyn Ra!n. I thought that was pretty cool since we're planning on having our next girl be Gwendolen Eve, but then when the mother found out she said that Gwendolyn is a very "princessy" name. What do y'all think? Is Gwendolyn a "princess" name? Is there a Dancing Princess named that or something?

other Amber--my only association with Gwendolyn is this really old kids' book from my mother's childhood about "Gwendolyn the Magic Hen" who laid golden eggs. From what I remember it was a little bit creepy, but had beautiful illustrations. Hens are not exactly princessy though, so I have no princess association with the name.

P.S. the captcha is "oJhnson" -- perhaps related to the Jhons discussed on the last thread? :)